DJ Paul

In partnership with Juicy J, DJ Paul helped shift rap prominence toward the South after years of East and West Coast dominance. Under the pair’s direction Three 6 Mafia advanced from a Memphis underground sensation into a nationally established rap powerhouse, earning an Academy Award and later generating numerous solo releases from its many members throughout the mid- to late 1990s. DJ Paul’s productions favored dark, eerie arrangements built on bass-heavy beats and haunting sounds, while he also contributed vocals as a Three 6 Mafia member and supplied rhymes to projects by Project Pat, Gangsta Boo, La Chat, and Tear da Club Up Thugs. He further explored filmmaking through the 2001 straight-to-video release Choices, which featured most of the Three 6 Mafia collective.

Juicy J, born Jordan Houston, and DJ Paul, born Paul Beauregard, began working together in the early 1990s as Memphis-area DJs. They soon created original beats and recruited local rappers to record over them, issuing the results regionally under the Triple 6 Mafia name; those recordings later appeared as re-releases. In 1995 the loose collective adopted the name Three 6 Mafia and independently issued its debut album Mystic Stylez. The project gained underground traction, prompting a distribution agreement with Relativity via the Hypnotized Minds label. Throughout the late 1990s Juicy J and DJ Paul issued multiple albums annually on Hypnotized Minds, fully leveraging the arrangement. By decade’s end they had built an extensive brand and commercial empire, highlighted by the breakthrough album When the Smoke Clears in 2000, which entered Billboard’s album chart at number six.

Paul’s debut solo effort, Underground 16: For da Summa, arrived in 2002. In 2006 he, Juicy J, and Crunchy Black received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” featured in the film Hustle & Flow. After Three 6 Mafia delivered Last 2 Walk in 2008 the group paused its activities. Paul returned with the solo album Scale-A-Ton in 2009 and followed it in 2012 with A Person of Interest, a hip-hop record that also incorporated dance and dubstep elements. In 2014 Paul reunited with Lord Infamous, Crunchy Black, Koopsta Knicca, and Gangsta Boo as Da Mafia 6ix; by year’s end the collective joined Insane Clown Posse on Reindeer Games, released through Psychopathic Records. One year later the same imprint issued Paul’s solo album Master of Evil, which included appearances from Violent J, Yelawolf, and Lil Wyte.